Election Day is November 3, but voting is under way. By now, most of California’s 21.2 million registered voters have their ballots in hand, and several are still trying to decide how best to cast their ballots.
You may recall that two years ago, during the mid-term elections, several national records were broken: early-voter turnout in a non-presidential election, the number of candidates running, the number of female candidates running, the number of female candidates elected, the number of LGBTQ candidates running, the number of women of color running, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, the first Native American woman elected to Congress, the first Muslim woman elected to Congress, the first Korean American woman elected to Congress, and the first openly gay governor.
During this November election, we know that records for early voting are being surpassed across the United States. As of this writing, more than 50 million ballots have been cast nationally, despite all the obstacles voters have had to overcome. In California, according to the nonpartisan, nonprofit journalism venture CalMatters, “more than 4.5 million Californians have already cast ballots in the … election.” That was when there were still twelve days to go. David Rosenfeld of The Daily Breeze reported on October 19 that “more than 662,000 ballots [had] been returned to the L.A. County Registrar” just two weeks after the ballots were mailed to voters. Time will tell if voter turnout records will be broken at the national and state levels.
Closer to home in our service area, the League is doing all it can to encourage voter turnout. In September we announced several plans to educate voters and get out the vote, and we are blessed with volunteers who have taken up the cause. Our volunteers sent 3,900 special postcards to low-propensity registered voters giving important election information. In addition, 10,000 postcards were sent to residents in certain geographic areas in Pasadena, Altadena, Monrovia, and Duarte. Two programs designed to educate voters have ended, but the fruits of this labor live on. Candidate Forums coordinated by Katherine Gavzy and Pros and Cons presentations coordinated by Robbie Davis were presented live via Zoom and were recorded so voters can still view them. Visit our YouTube channel at www.lwv-pa.org to view the recordings. Read about these two programs in this edition of the Voter.
Two other programs rely on direct voter contact and are still under way: the Voter Hotline (626-798-0965) and Phone Banking. Voter Hotline hours started on October 24 and will continue from 2:00 to 7:00 p.m. through November 2. On November 3, the Voter Hotline will operate from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Phone Banking will continue through November 3. This program follows up with low-propensity voters who received get-out-the-vote postcards from the League and have not yet voted.
Limited access to high school classrooms due to COVID put a crimp in our style, but we managed to Zoom into eleven virtual “classrooms” to educate students and walk them through the voter registration process.
I am looking forward to seeing the election turnout in our service area after all the votes have been tallied—and expect that our GOTV efforts will have made a difference!
—Martha Y. Zavala
